An Artist a Week: Anthony Hurd

Anthony Hurd’s paintings on wood blew me away the instant I first saw them. The magnitude of detail and the surreal, dreamlike lens of the work is such a gorgeous fantasy feast for the eyes. In the featured piece, several worlds seem to be overlaid and stacked

He has been featured in shows for “suggestivism” which is a type of fantasy-esque art that implies there is more to a piece than is first apparent.

Something about his work pulls back to the psychadelic fantasy art my father collected when I was a kid, something dark and odd and beautiful all at once. It’s wizard fire and a tumultuous trip into the ether with the destination being completely unknown to someone as small and sweet as under-ten-year-old me.

A dream of mine is to one day see his pieces in person, if not own an original, because they are not only beautiful but also impressive in size to behold.

I think the best way to sum up how I feel about his work is the title of this piece, another favorite of mine: “There is a radiance that only shines in light of what I never knew existed.”